Political Correctness and Women's Rights in Pakistan

Lately I read the following message in a forum and was surprised by the lack of reactions of the female/feminist members :

 "In Islam, women are advised to maintain modesty when out of home, i.e care to cover the Tempting / Eye catching parts of the body. It makes no difference if their heart is clean or full of maggots. It is for their own safety. 

On the other hand, men are also advised to control their gaze. If they don't, then their gaze can take them to sinful thought and so on. 
I heard our Imam saying to men, the first involuntary glimpse of a woman is a blessing, the second, third...........upto a continuous gaze invites Satan."

Our generation is the generation of the liberation from the religious shackles in general and especially for women including in the most educated classes like in Pakistan. But below a varnish of enlightenment these lines reveal that people one considers of the most educated Pakistani bourgeoisie remains unfortunately tied to a  fundamentalist aspect of Islam. 

Difficult to imagine all the indignant and angry reactions would a Westerner write this... Almost worse is the passivity of girls whose life was most likely dedicated to women's rights. One of their fights was to prevent women from being treated like jealous objects by their omnipotent husbands like in this case. Sympathy for a man bringing  "Oriental insight" to a virtual community does not mean closing eyes. The danger of political correctness is flagrant. In the name of respects for other cultures people end up accepting everything; from early age marriage, from confined wives and now prisoners of a religious yoke strictly watched out by husbands.

The same political correctness cannot demand "cultural differences" to be respected if the forget, contradict and deny our basic values. In the Satan's case and the "respecting cultures" principle our basic values of freedom and emancipation of women from men are being blatantly disregarded. To remain silent in such a case because of friendship is betraying one's former ideals and demonstrating the hypocrisy of political correctness. On the other hand questioning such an anomaly is impossible and can be dangerous. Lack of interest if not cowardness are the issues.

A mirror which is so right...

A fun cartoon:

In so many forums mediocre comments can ruin an interesting thread. Huge amounts of topics reduces to almost nothing their interest since they aim at attracting a maximum of lazy thinking members and causes convulsive posting. Chain-posting has as a cost: quantity and quality do no fit together.

A Very Costly Suspension

Last January for a holiday in NYC I sent without success about twenty hosting requests previously edited by a veteran member. I was asking also some  cultural and touristic information and also to be able to meet some local members for a chat and a drink. But sadly I was blocked by several members leading to a suspensión and preventing me from sending more requests and looking for informations  )
  
Cheap hotels or students centers hardly exist at least not in  Manhattan so I was left with one of the cheapest Airbnb room in town : a minucle place, no window, shared bathroom (but well...) There was also a small microwave oven but while on vacation I did not feel like warming up supermarket food to live on. So more pleasant to eat out most of the time.
Due to the suspension I had no time to get in touch with hosts even for some hanging around like some discovery walks attend some musical. Altogether the material expenses came out pretty costly not to speak of the absences  of meetings with NYC hosts or surfers.

Still  at the last minute I was invited by a Brooklyn host who saw a public request I posted in December and offered me to stay five days. Since I was offline and could not contact this host a friend put us in touch directly (by email).

It would take  a lot of active denial not to accept the idea that blockings and subsequent suspensions are definitely the opposite of the Couchsurfing spirit, something should be done to stop those problematic actions.
  

  

Sexism, ageism, and every other "ism.

Lewis Parson:

 (...) "I do know there is egregious "Ageism" on CS. When I was in my 30's and 40's I travelled (yes, with SERVAS) all over the world. However, I wanted to go to an event recently, about 65 miles from me. The traffic is quite severe, requiring a R/T of about 4-hours. So I sent out about 40 Requests. I got zero positive responses! And also the reverse: I accepted several travelers but, at the last minute, they got "better" offers and didn't even bother to cancel with me. They just didn't show up. Oh well! - Indeed, young pretty things can live and travel on CS easily and freely. In that respect, that is NOT the CS credo of equality, unity and peace, etc. etc. Rather there is distinct sexism, ageism, and every other "ism." Okay, my single experience is not scientific - but I'd bet on the test results and I'm not a gambler. :-) -- Peace to all."